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ANKARA / AP
The United States and Turkey struggled on Thursday to resolve a deep dispute over the Kurdish role in the fight against the IS group, but appeared no closer to a resolution as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrapped up his first trip to Turkey.
As the US prepares an operation to retake the de facto IS capital of Raqqa, Syria, the US and Turkey are deadlocked over who should do the fighting. Turkey wants the US to partner with its military and with Turkish-backed forces in Syria, but the US has been backing Syrian Kurdish fighters who have proven the most effective ground force against IS. “Let me be very frank: These are not easy decisions,” Tillerson said in Ankara. “They are difficult decisions that have to be made.” Turkey considers the Kurdish force, known as the YPG, to be a terrorist group that threatens Turkey’s security.
The US hasn’t formally announced a decision on who will be part of the Raqqa operation. But all signs point to the US continuing to bet on the Kurds. In recent days the U.S. military airlifted hundreds of Syrian Kurdish forces along with U.S. military advisers and artillery behind enemy lines as preparations for the Raqqa offensive ramp up.
Tillerson said he and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had explored “a number of options and alternatives” for the operation, but signaled they’d reached no agreement. He said both countries would keep working to resolve the issue while insisting there was “no space” between the allies as far as their joint resolve to defeat IS.
But Cavusoglu, standing alongside Tillerson, warned that past U.S. support for the Syrian Kurdish forces had already damaged America’s relations with Turkey. He accused the U.S. of using one terrorist organization to fight another.
“It has negatively affected the Turkish people’s sentiments toward the United States,” Cavusoglu said in Turkish.
Cavusoglu claimed that the Trump administration and the U.S. military have accepted that the YPG, the dominant force in the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, is intrinsically linked to the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The PKK has led a three-decade long insurgency in southeast Turkey and is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. But the U.S. has not extended that designation to the Kurds in Syria, and American military officials have said there’s no evidence the YPG have posed a threat to Turkey in recent years.